Hiding In Plain Sight

BRIAN BALOGH: We’re going to leap forward now to the late 20th century in a watershed event for the deaf community.

GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCER: We picked Dr. Elizabeth Ann Zinser as establishment president of Gallaudet. [protesting in the background] It was because…

BRIAN BALOGH: It was March 1988. Officials at Gallaudet University had just announced the appointment of a new president. Students at Gallaudet, the nation’s only college for the deaf and hard of hearing, were outraged. They began a campaign called “Deaf President Now.”

[PROTESTING]

NEWS ANNOUNCER: There’s never been anything like it at Gallaudet. For three days, students have shut down the campus, boycotted classes and burned effigies after their board of trustees…

BRIAN BALOGH: Zinser didn’t even know sign language.

I. KING JORDAN: Truth be told, I was shocked.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: I thought I had the job.

BRIAN BALOGH: This is I. King Jordan. In 1988, he was a dean at Gallaudet and one of the candidates for the presidency. Jordan lost his hearing in a motorcycle accident when he was 21. We spoke to him through a sign language interpreter.

He says that students had been telling the board that it was time for Gallaudet, founded 124 years before, to have a deaf leader.

I. KING JORDAN: But the board didn’t take that message to heart, apparently. There’s a famous quote where the chairmen of the board says, “It’s not time for a deaf president. Deaf people are not ready to be president yet.”

BRIAN BALOGH: Well, do you want to tell us what was going on?

I. KING JORDAN: I can tell you what went on from my perspective.

BRIAN BALOGH: Yes!

I. KING JORDAN: I was at home, and it was Sunday, March 6. And I was home in the evening, and somebody called my home. And my wife answered the phone, and whoever called—I can’t remember who it was now—said, “Turn on the news. You want to see what’s going on.”

So, she turned on the news, and there was live coverage of what was going on at Gallaudet, and the students were really in an uproar, and it was then that I learned that they had appointed Dr. Zinser.

So, I went into campus on Monday. I drove in, and I couldn’t drive on the campus, so I parked nearby, and I couldn’t walk onto campus. All of the students closed down the campus, and they wouldn’t let me on. And they had closed the gates. They had actually hotwired a couple of the school buses.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: And drove the school buses in front of the gates and deflated the tires, so it wasn’t going to be very easy to get onto campus.

BRIAN BALOGH: So, how did you react when you saw these protests? Were you with the students? Did your administrator sensibilities kick in and say, “Oh, my goodness, this is bad for publicity”?

I. KING JORDAN: I think both one and two are the way I reacted.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs] Yeah.

I. KING JORDAN: I thought what the students did was understandable and correct, and, at the same time, I was a dean, so I had the tension between those two different positions.

One thing, if you’ve done your homework, that you probably know is on Wednesday at the National Press Club, I stood up in front of a group of reporters and cameras, and said that it was the board’s decision and that, as dean, I should support that decision.

And, as I stood up there saying it—well, there’s a backstory.

BRIAN BALOGH: We love backstories on BackStory.

I. KING JORDAN: [laughs] Right, I would guess you do. [laughs] I would guess you do.

On Wednesday, I got an email, and the email was from the provost who, obviously, was hearing, and the provost was my immediate supervisor. So, she said she wanted to meet me and where could we meet? Where would be a good place off-campus where it would just be the two of us and that there wouldn’t be anybody else there, blah, blah, blah?

People were afraid. People who were administrators and people who were on the board were afraid of the protesters. So, we agreed to meet at a restaurant, and we agreed to meet at the Tune Inn—

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: And, if you know anything about Washington, D.C., that’s [laughs] really a cool place, the Tune Inn.

BRIAN BALOGH: It is deeply cool… I know the Tune Inn.

I. KING JORDAN: [laughs] It is. Oh, good, I’m glad. I’m glad you do. So, I selected the place where we would meet.

I learned later that they sent a team of security people to scrub the place, to look around and make sure that it was going to just be me who went there.

BRIAN BALOGH: Wow.

I. KING JORDAN: Yeah, it was really unreal. I didn’t know this at the time, but it was really unreal. So, I went. I met with her, and she said, “Dr. Zinser is in town. She just arrived. She’s here, and she wants to meet with the student leaders of the protest. She thinks she can convince the student leaders of the protest that she would be a good president, and she will tell them that she’s only going to be a president for a couple years.”

And then the provost told me that I needed to meet with Dr. Zinser and that I could help put them together. So, I said, “OK. I can do that,” and then I went back to campus.

Meanwhile, the… I said on Monday morning there was some confusion about who was in charge and what was going on. By this time during the week, they had what they called the DPN Council of representatives from all the different constituencies on campus, and they met on a very regular basis—all day, into the night, and they had headquarters on campus.

They had telephones and teams of interpreters, and I met with them, and they were not very friendly to me when I met with them to bring that request. They were very unfriendly with me, and they wanted to make sure that… “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

So, I said, “Honestly, all I’m doing is trying to arrange for an opportunity for Dr. Zinser to meet with the four student leaders.”

Well, the four student leaders were there, and they were all for it. They said, “Great. Let’s meet with Dr. Zinser, but she can’t meet here. She can never set foot on campus. Never.”

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: “We will not allow her on campus.”

So, we arranged to meet in a motel, and I have a really great memory of that meeting.

BRIAN BALOGH: Tell us about it.

I. KING JORDAN: Because it was a motel that’s right at the corner of Bladensburg Road and New York Avenue.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: I forget the name of the motel now, but I went and—

BRIAN BALOGH: These were not—as I recall Washington, D.C., these were not luxury motels?

I. KING JORDAN: Oh, no. It was like Motel 6 kind of motel. It was really—

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs] Well, actually, more like Motel 2½.

I. KING JORDAN: Maybe Motel 1.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: It was not a good motel, not at all. It was really not a good motel, and we just had a regular room, and the room had one double bed and one—count ‘em—one chair.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: And, in that room, were the four student leaders, a sign language interpreter, me, and Elizabeth Zinser. So, there were seven of us in that room.

BRIAN BALOGH: Who got to sit in the chair?

I. KING JORDAN: [laughs] I can’t remember. I can’t remember. That’s a very good question: Who got to sit in the chair? I can’t remember. I stood. I can remember that I stood the entire time, and I watched Elizabeth Zinser try to persuade the students that she could do the job, that she would be their friend, their ally, their supporter, that there would be no recriminations or punishment for the protest or anything like that.

And, one by one, the four students spoke, and each one of them with increasing conviction and strength said, basically, “Ain’t no way.”

There are a lot of “with all due respect…” statements, and they all said, “We respect you. We understand that you’re a very successful administrator at the University of North Carolina. You can never be president of Gallaudet, no. Sorry. Can’t happen.”

And she tried and tried and tried, and, ultimately, the four students said, “OK, we’re done here,” and they stood up one by one, shook her hand and left, and it was just me and Elizabeth Zinser standing in this motel room.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: She was talking on a cell phone. I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I wasn’t even sure who she was talking to, and she basically said, “Come with me,” and I’m, “Where are we going? Why am I going with you? Where are we going?”

And she said, “We’re going to the National Press Club. There’s a press conference happening right now.”

I didn’t know the purpose of the press conference or exactly what was happening or anything, but the purpose of the press conference was to emphasize to the public that while the students were there protesting, and while all that was happening, the board was firm in their conviction that they had made the right decision, and that they were reaffirming their support for president-elect Zinser.

And when I got to the National Press Club, then there was an interpreter, and, all of a sudden, the… I can’t remember if it was the chairman of the board or the provost—I really can’t remember who did it—but somebody, literally, grabbed my arm and walked me up to the stage, and then I was asked by whoever that was, “Do you support what the board of trustees is saying here?”

And, to my regret, I said, “Yes, I do. It’s a board decision. They made a lawful and legal, and what they thought was reasoned decision, and they had every right to do that.”

[laughs] While I was doing that, there was a crew there from a TV program called Deaf Mosaic from Gallaudet’s TV department, and the camera man and the producer who were there were both deaf. And when I looked back at the producer, who was a young woman who was a good friend of mine and someone who I liked and who I knew liked me, she was looking at me, and she was shaking her head.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs]

I. KING JORDAN: And she was crying.

BRIAN BALOGH: Oh.

I. KING JORDAN: She didn’t sign anything. She just mouthed, “No. No,” and then I was whisked away from there, and whisked back to Gallaudet campus.

When I got back to Gallaudet campus, there was a faculty meeting going on, and, at the faculty meeting, they were debating whether or not the faculty was going to go on record supporting the students or go on record supporting the board, and it was a very hot faculty meeting.

And I watched as one of the influential and highly-respected deaf faculty members made an impassioned plea for the faculty to go on record supporting the students. And then he was stunned. He came off the stage, and he saw me, and he signed to me something like, “King, we saw what you said at the National Press Club, and you have to know that I really strongly disagree with what you said, but I still love you,” and he gave me this huge hug.

And, when he did that, I said, “OK, I’m dean, and I’m also deaf. And I’m going to be deaf for the rest of my life, and I’m going to be dean for as long as I keep the provost happy. So, I really have to… I have to change my position somehow.”

NEWS ANNOUNCER: [from the recording of a news segment] And now they’ve become even stronger…

[PROTESTING]

I. KING JORDAN: And the next day, I went to campus.

I. KING JORDAN: [from the recording of a news segment] So, yesterday, because I had been a candidate and wanted to be both reasonable and fair, I gave a statement recognizing the legal authority of the board to name the president of Gallaudet University. In fact, my personal reaction to the board’s decision was and is anger. Anger at the continued lack of…

[CHEERING]

I. KING JORDAN: I said, “I fully support the action that the students have taken, the notion that the next president should be a deaf person, and I stand with you.”

I. KING JORDAN: [from the recording of a news segment]… focused the world on the larger issues. I must now publicly affirm my support for the point of view held by the Gallaudet community.

I. KING JORDAN: And while I was signing that, I knew that I was shooting myself in the foot. I thought, “Ain’t no way I will ever become president now. I mean, not now, not later. They’re going to have to appoint somebody because Zinser can’t weather this storm. I know that. But given the way I stood up and did this, they’re never going to appoint me.”

BRIAN BALOGH: Right.

I. KING JORDAN: That was Thursday. On Friday, Zinser resigned, and the short of it is that I got a telephone call on Sunday telling me that the board had appointed me president. So, we went to the Mayflower Hotel where the board had been staying, and the Mayflower, when they announced a press conference, word got out, and so all the students came there.

[CHEERING]

I. KING JORDAN: I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students came. And I remember a short written statement that I had. I wanted to really be careful of what I said.

I. KING JORDAN: [from the recording of a news segment] And I must give the highest praise to the students of Gallaudet for showing us exactly, even now, how one can seize an idea with such force that it becomes a reality.

[CHEERING]

I. KING JORDAN: And I pronounced “reality” [laughs] like real estate, “an idea becomes realty,” and my wife gave me an elbow.

BRIAN BALOGH: [laughs] King, what impact do you think this event had on the deaf community?

I. KING JORDAN: Oh, wow, it’s almost impossible to measure. I think about halfway—well, no, not halfway through the week. Actually, it was probably toward the end of the week, I realized that it was not really a protest anymore, that it was really a revolution. That the deaf community would never be the same. That the view of and understanding of and perception of deaf people would never be the same.

It began as a student protest, but it really became a revolution about the rights and abilities of people who were deaf, and a cry for the recognition of people who can hear, of those abilities and rights.

So, it really changed not just the way you guys saw us, you know, not just the way hearing people saw deaf people, but it changed the way we saw ourselves. I changed the way deaf people feel about ourselves. People are proud to be deaf. People are proud to be part of the deaf community, and, as I’m saying this, I’m thinking back to when I was in graduate school.

I was in graduate school at the University of Tennessee, and I was a psychology student. And, one day, I gave a presentation, and I called the presentation “Deaf Pride,” and the faculty member, professor, really, really criticized me in front of the class.

He said, “Talking about deaf pride assumes that someone would be proud to be deaf, and deafness is a very serious handicap. Deafness is a very serious disability. Nobody would ever be proud to be deaf.”

Wow!

Let’s see, I graduated in ’73, so this would probably be 1971 that this professor, who was an expert in deaf education—I mean, that was his area—told me, “Never, ever talk about deaf pride.”

BRIAN BALOGH: How old were you when that professor made that statement?

I. KING JORDAN: So, let’s see. In 1971, that would make me 28. I was 28 years old. He was probably 60.

I just said, “OK,” and then I left. I knew he was wrong, but I didn’t argue with him. I—

BRIAN BALOGH: He was wrong, but would you say he represented the prevailing knowledge and expertise of the time?

I. KING JORDAN: Absolutely. That’s exactly what he represented: the prevailing knowledge and expertise of the time, that’s exactly it, yep, and now there’s a whole new world for deaf people where people in deaf education—hearing people—respect the opinions and the knowledge of people who are deaf, respect the life experiences that people who are deaf have that they can never have.

BRIAN BALOGH: What would you identify as the most important turning point in the emergence of your own identity and your pride as a person who is deaf?

I. KING JORDAN: It would have to be Gallaudet. It would have to be my experience as a student at Gallaudet. I woke up in the hospital deaf. I was in the navy at the time, and I was working at the Pentagon and living in a barracks. I had a job, at night, in downtown D.C. I would ride my motorcycle from the barracks to this job.

I would do the job and, then, about 11:00 at night, I would ride my motorcycle back. A woman—I was riding my motorcycle south on 14th Street. A woman was driving north on 14th Street, never saw me, turned right in front of me. I didn’t even have a second to put on the brakes. I ran into her, and I had a very, very severely fractured skull.

I thought that my life was over when I became deaf. I really… I said, “What am I going to do? How can I possibly get an education?”

I had a friend who had a deaf aunt. He told me about Gallaudet. I became deaf in Washington, D.C. for heaven’s sake right hard by Gallaudet on 6th Street [laughs]. I had no idea what it was. I didn’t know, but this friend told me about Gallaudet, so I went to Gallaudet, and it changed my life.

I was a hearing person who couldn’t hear, and, during my time there, I learned to become a deaf person. And there was a little buzz phrase that I had when I was president, and that was, “Deaf people can do everything except hear,” and I believe that with all my heart.

BRIAN BALOGH: King, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it’s been to talk to you today. Thank you so much for joining us on BackStory.

I. KING JORDAN: Thank you. It’s really been a pleasure for me.

[MUSIC]

BRIAN BALOGH: I. King Jordan is president emeritus of Gallaudet University.

[MUSIC]